Miniature Gardens: An Indoor Gardening Option
MINIATURE GARDENS
An Indoor Gardening Option
I have been enjoying your stories and am so excited when I learn how the STEAM Outdoors e-course is inspiring you. This week Kayla shared her idea of creating an indoor Fariy Garden.
“I love the idea of creating an indoor fairy garden with my students! My students are extremely creative and I imagine this would be something they would get incredibly excited about. We are lucky enough to have a library with a seed library directly across the street from us and it would make a great “field trip” with the kids to head over there and get some seeds and along with some books about gardening and fairies. I also like how this brings together all kinds of disciplines together including art (creating the space in way “fairies” would like), reading, science, and is hands on. The fact the kids get to use their imagination and creativity with the fairy aspects adds to the fun.”
“Do you have any other book recommendations besides Fairy House that might be useful for this type of project? Any other tips? I saw some interesting looking ones planted in what appears to be bird baths on google which I liked as they can be moved in/out depending on the season but I’m not sure the practicality of using this.”
I have used a variety of containers for miniature gardens. Look around and see what you have. Bird baths are fabulous! I have also used old wooden garden boxes. Tapping into you community for additional resources is also a great first step to take. Check out the Whimsical Miniature Gardens at the REAL Program.
BOOKS:
There are many Fairy Garden websites that sell minitures for these type of gardens. I like to get ideas from these places and make the furniture myself from natural materials. This book is a good resources for just that.
There is a miniture garden community that highlights fairy houses. Take a peek at this series.
Are you interested in bringing your garden inside this winter? What inspires you about miniature gardening? Can you connect this experience with STEAM? Make a miniture garden, take a picture, and share what worked and what did not.
Is is time to hear from you. Is there something that is inspiring you in the STEAM Outdoor E-course? I love questions. Ask a question and I will respond in the next post.
Happy Gardening!
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We made a terrarium with tropical plants. When we explored dinosaurs we put mini dinosaurs in the tank. The children loved finding them and identifing them. When we changed our theme to Chicka, Chicka Boom, Boom, one child suggested we hide letters in the terrarium. We did. They loved it.
Another class made mini fairy gardens using dried pieces of flowers, sticks, stones, moss and leaves. They glued their nature onto a tree cookie to build a fairy house. The small toy fairies liked to ‘fly” from house to house.
I just took some kids gardening books out of our local library and I’m excited to start our garden. What I liked about the books is that there was a variety of activities that went along with them; for example, there was an art activity where you use foil to make butterflies. I love how the books are incorporating the STEAM aspects into them.
This year we did some indoor gardening. We planted sweet basil and lemon basil next to each other in a box planter. we have been watching, comparing and soon we will be moving them to our new greenhouse to grow even more before transplanting them in our outdoor bed. We also just started micro-greens for observation and tasting.
Brilliant to observe that differences and similarities of basil types. Would love to learn your findings.
I really liked the idea of doing a sunflower garden. We currently plant sunflowers in our raised beds and in front of our school. However, there is something magical about having sunflowers in a circle in our backyard.